The big story

New general manager Danny Ferry wasted no time revamping the Hawks’ roster after taking over the front office in late June. He traded away two of Atlanta’s Core Four—Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams—because “the status quo wasn’t going to be good enough to reach our goals.”

The move created a lot of cap space, which the team likely will try to take advantage of after the season, when power forward Josh Smith is expected to leave in free agency. But it also created an immediate talent deficit that won’t be made up by the players the deals produced—Devin Harris, Jordan Farmar, Anthony Morrow, Johan Petro and DeShawn Stevenson.

Ferry also sent guard Willie Green to the Clippers in favor of signing free agent Lou Williams (6-1), who’ll help form a dynamic but small trio of guards with Harris (6-3) and Jeff Teague (6-2). Along with Smith, All-Star center Al Horford remains from the Core Four, and they will be asked to take on more responsibilities inside as the Hawks go smaller. Horford (6-10), Smith (6-9) and Kyle Korver (6-7) will give Atlanta one of the shorter front lines in the league, and the Hawks finished 23rd in the NBA in rebounding last season with Marvin Williams and Johnson.

With his makeover, Ferry sought to increase and improve the team’s shooting options and produce better spacing in a more free-flowing offense. The hope is that the Teague-Harris-Lou Williams trio can beat other teams down the floor and be more disruptive defensively, thus opening up easier baskets and better looks on the perimeter for the likes of Morrow, Korver and first-round draft pick John Jenkins of Vanderbilt. The big question is whether Teague and Harris can play together; both are aggressive point guards who need the ball and are always looking to drive.

Keep an eye on …

Lou Williams is a seven-year league veteran, but because he entered the draft straight out of high school, he’s only 25. So there’s a lot left in his tank. Since 2007-08, he has averaged at least 23 minutes per game each season, but he has never played 30 per game. Despite starting only 38 of 455 games in his career, he has averaged more than 14 points over the last three seasons, and he has also proved to be an effective defender and ballhandler who seldom turns the ball over. He led the Sixers in scoring last season (14.9 points per game) without a start, and, as a result, finished second in voting for the league’s sixth man award. Williams is outstanding as a screen-and-roll guard, finishing 17th in the NBA last year in scoring in such situations (.98 points per possession), according to Synergy Sports Technology. Despite his 175-pound frame, he’s a fearless driver with a nasty pump fake, and he is adroit at creating contact and getting to the free-throw line, where he has shot 80.5 percent over the last five seasons. Shooting 3-pointers used to be his weakness, but that no longer appears to be the case after Williams registered a career-high 36.2 percent (83-of-229) mark from beyond the arc last season.

Strategy session

When Larry Drew replaced Mike Woodson as Atlanta’s coach before the 2010-11 season, he vowed to move away from his predecessor’s halfcourt offense, which focused on isolation plays, in favor of a more uptempo approach that could better take advantage of the Hawks’ athleticism. He guided the Hawks to a 40-26 season last year, and they made the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s No. 5 seed. But, perhaps in anticipation of Ferry’s preference for a more drive-and-pitch style, Drew made a trip to Israel in September to study highly regarded Maccabi Tel Aviv coach David Blatt, who directed an overachieving Russian team to the bronze medal at the London Olympics.

Outside view (from an Eastern Conference scout): “They’re going to drop off after losing some of the guys they lost, it is just a matter of how far and whether teams behind them can make the jump up, like

Washington and the Knicks and Bucks. The contracts they got rid of were huge, obviously, but Joe Johnson’s talent tends to get lost in all the contract talk. He is a big loss for them. But if you look at it, they ran just about as much as anyone in the Eastern Conference last season, and they were good at it. Lou Williams and Devin Harris, those are guys who want to run. So we will see if Larry Drew tries to push it even more and get them out of the break. That will be the real key to what this team can do, in the regular season at least.”

Inside view (from coach Larry Drew): “There were a lot of changes over the summer. A lot of new guys are coming in—Lou Williams, Kyle Korver, Devin Harris, to name a few. We are bringing in some guys who can really, really get up and down the floor. We’ll be a team that is going to get out in the open floor a lot more. And we’ve got guys who can make shots. I am excited about what we’ve done.”

Our view: After losing in six games to Boston in the first round of last season’s playoffs, the franchise has hit the reset button under Ferry, shedding Johnson’s big contract and anticipating Smith’s possible departure after this season. The Hawks still have a hint of their uberathlete reputation, but that’s fading; under Ferry, they’ll take a more European approach: spacing the floor, driving and finding open shooters who can make opponents pay. Regardless, this group is not good enough to end the season 14 games over .500 like last season’s team did. The Hawks ranked sixth in the league in points allowed per game in 2011-12 (93.2), but the loss of athleticism will certainly hurt them there. Still, Atlanta has Horford, Smith and a coach who’s good at rolling with the punches—so a record around .500 and the East’s final playoff spot are reasonable goals.

Projected rotation

Teague and Harris are both natural point guards, but they’re expected to start together in the backcourt, with Williams (who can play both guard spots) and Morrow rotating in as the first two players off the bench. The front line should be able to score in bunches, but it’s small, so defense and rebounding will be a challenge. And other than veteran Zaza Pachulia, there’s not much quality depth inside.